Lorely Burt was the right woman for Lib Dem deputy leadership

BY ALL accounts it was a close-run thing but Sir Malcolm Bruce's victory last week over Lorely Burt in the battle for the Lib Dem deputy leadership was a blunder of Olympian proportions by a party teetering on the precipice of irrelevance.

Instead of electing a capable woman, whose appointment could have gone a long way to fill the cracks of recent times, MPs ticked the "pale, stale and male" box.

For moderates, idealists and the young, forced to wrinkle their noses against the fug of sexual harassment, cronyism and scandal polluting their once right-on party, it was like finding Willy Wonka's golden ticket and using it to prop up a rickety table.

One young female member confided: "I was waiting for the headline, It's Official, Lib Dems Do Hate Women."

Incumbent and prospective councillors can only brace themselves for the maelstrom to come in May's local elections.

Pity the street-pounders as they knock on doors and try to explain why the party that once led the pack in terms of equality and inclusion seems to have abandoned 51 per cent of the population.

With at least 24 votes of the 57 total in the bag Lorely had been favoured to win and for good reason. Yes the party needed to flash its female credentials but the economics graduate, former deputy governor at Holloway prison and one-time parliamentary private secretary to Danny Alexander had proved her mettle.

The tenacity with which she narrowly held her Solihull seat in 2010 shows what she's made of.

She was the first Lib Dem woman to chair a parliamentary committee and her performance while spokesperson on business, women and equality showed promise far beyond the relatively low profile she holds today.

When, during Nick Clegg's mangled attempts at salvaging the Rennard debacle, she was asked by an action group whether the peer should apologise, she immediately replied with a resounding "yes". To the 450 members of Rock The Boat, a forum set up to expose and discuss sexual shenanigans within the party, hers was a clarion call.

It should be said that the third contender for the deputyleadership Gordon Birtwistle also sent a positive reply. In fact the only candidate who didn't was Sir Malcolm. He wants the matter handled privately.

Though details of the vote were not published Lorely tweeted she had lost by just two votes. The ballot used the standard transferable vote system. Unfortunately the system, where a runner-up's votes are passed on to the next preferred candidate, probably did for Mrs Burt.

Irony upon irony, had they used the first-past-the-post system she is likely to have won.

The new deputy is a former leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, who has chaired the Commons international development committee since 2005. He has a quiet manner and the ability to command loyalty without making a song and dance about things.

It may be true that party strategists wanted a cool head to guide them through the rocky waters of economic policy and the Scottish referendum.

Others however claim that his intention to stand down at the next election just highlights the notion that his success came from protest.

Being democratically open and transparent is part of the Lib Dem mantra, which is why so many fumed when apparatchiks refused to divulge the numbers of Tuesday's vote. Offered a chance to give Clegg a bloody nose through a rare secret ballot, though, and they pounced.

Lib dems faced enough problems before they became mired in controversy. Their climbdown on tuition fees and love for Europe, which puts them with just a quarter of the population, are the tip of the iceberg. Bruce cannot change this.

How much wiser it would have been to have boosted the profile of an accomplished MP with a wafer-thin majority and shown that at least the chains which anchor supporters in stormy times (a belief in fairness, equality, integrity) were still strong.